No abstract

In adults, visual search for a colour target is facilitated if the target and distractors fall in different colour categories (e.g. Daoutis, Pilling, & Davies, in press). The present study explored category effects in children's colour search. The relationship between linguistic colour categories and perceptual categories was addressed by comparing native speakers of languages differing in the number of colour terms. Experiment 1 compared English and Kwanyama (Namibian) children aged 4 to 7 years on a visual search task, using target‐distractor pairs (blue‐green, blue‐purple, red‐pink) for which the Kwanyama did not have distinct names. The presence of a category advantage in the English, but not in the Kwanyama, suggested that linguistic boundaries may affect search performance. Experiment 2 examined visual search performance in the green‐yellow and the blue‐green region, in English and Himba (Namibian) 6‐year‐olds. The number of distractors was varied to assess search efficiency. Cross‐category search was more efficient than within‐category search in the English group, but this advantage was absent in the Himba. Increasing the number of distractors affected search speed in the English group, but not in the Himba. Overall, these findings suggest cross‐language differences in categorical effects on colour search, but also in the way the children performed the search. The nature of the category effect in search is discussed with respect to these findings.

We explored top-down modulation of spatial frequency (SF) processing. When auditory pre-cueing directed observers' attention to one of two 4-octaves (SF) apart plaid components observers tended to perceive the cued component, suggesting selective attention to the SF channel they expected to carry task relevant information. In agreement, pre-cueing had no effect with components often processed by the same channel (0.5-octaves apart). Further, effects of expectancy were greater than of uncertainty and were SF tuned. Combined our findings suggest top-down modulation of early, cortical, SF processing. We argue this could similarly explain the previously reported influences of categorisation on SF processing.

Recent evidence suggests that spatial frequency (SF) processing of simple and complex visual patterns is flexible. The use of spatial scale in scene perception seems to be influenced by people's expectations. However as yet there is no direct evidence for top-down attentional effects on flexible scale use in scene perception. In two experiments we provide such evidence. We presented participants with low-and high-pass SF filtered scenes and cued their attention to the relevant scale. In Experiment 1 we subsequently presented them with hybrid scenes (both low and high-pass scenes present). We observed that participants reported detecting the cued component of hybrids. To explore if this might be due to decision biases, in Experiment 2, we replaced hybrids with images containing meaningful scenes at uncued SFs and noise at the cued SFs (invalid cueing). We found that participants performed poorly on invalid cueing trials. These findings are consistent with top-down attentional modulation of early spatial frequency processing in scene perception

The inaugural University of Surrey Questionnaire on Open Research Practices ran from February to May 2020. The aim of the questionnaire was to assess knowledge and adoption of open research practices across the University of Surrey at all career levels, personal experiences of their use and their perceived importance for ensuring the efficiency, reliability and reproducibility of research. This report provides an executive summary of the findings, recommended actions, and summary figures and text of responses to all questions in the questionnaire.